Unprofessional Development
by convenientdistraction
Summary: When Emma has to give a presentation on ethics at a faculty meeting, she gets a little improv assistance from someone special.


Emma Pillsbury did not enjoy public speaking. So when Principal Figgins asked her to give a presentation on student-teacher ethics during the professional development week prior to the new school year, she was less than thrilled. She was terrified.

One dry power point presentation and three handouts later, her audience looked about as enthused as her toothbrush holder had when she practiced in the bathroom mirror the night before. And no amount of her adorable, exaggerated hand-waving was going to save her this time. Just as she was about to suggest a short break, Figgins cleared his throat, stood and shuffled his way up to the podium where she stood at the front of the cafeteria.

"All right everyone, clearly this is not the most exciting topic in the world, " he sighed more than said.

Emma cringed at the thinly veiled insult towards her presentation skills.

"Let's add some spice to this lesson. I smell a hands-on learning opportunity! Miss Pillsbury, maybe you could use a volunteer to help you demonstrate appropriate and inappropriate conduct for our faculty members."

"Ah, well ah, I don't really think that . . . "

"Who wants to give Miss Pillsbury a hand?" Figgins' arm swept in front of her like she was a leftover item on the auction block.

Emma glued her eyes to the posters on the back wall of the cafeteria. Anything to distract her from the now dead silent room. The staff members fidgeted uncomfortably. With her peripheral vision she saw Mrs. Carlyle slump lower in her seat.

She fingered the ladybug clasp on her bracelet nervously and turned back to shoot a peeved frown at Figgins, hoping he could take the faculty's body language as a hint. He didn't.

"Anyone? Don't be shy now."

And just when she had mentally ranked the last thirty seconds as the second most embarrassing moment of her life, a familiar, muscular arm shot up in the back corner of the room.

"I'll give it a try."

Heads swiveled to see him push his chair out from behind the table and stand. And then heads swiveled back around to gauge her reaction.

Emma's knuckles turned white as her hands gripped the sides of the wooden podium, as he walked up to stand beside her at the front of the room. The only thing worse than failing at a presentation was having it rescued. By him.

"Excellent, William!" Figgins clapped his hands together and took his seat.

Emma took a deep breath, which probably sounded more like a choked strangle to her audience, and turned to face him. Considering his possible motives, she searched for some sort of indication of smug disgust or genuine concern in his hazel eyes, but he looked just as nervous as she felt. His thumbs edged into the pockets of his jeans, and a shoulder shrug on his part spoke for him. _Say something, Emma. _

"Okay, well, th-thank you Wi-Mr. Schuester. Um, let's see what are some examples of unethical conduct." She turned to the pages on the podium and began to flip nervously. She could barely focus on the print as she felt Will's stare on her. Brushing her now sweaty bangs back from her forehead (and silently debating how quickly she could bolt towards the exit door in her Mary Janes), she looked up at the members of the room.

"Um, would anyone like to give an example?" she squeaked. She saw the edges of Will's mouth turn up as he nodded encouragingly at her.

"Yelling?" A voice tentatively offered on the far-side of the cafeteria.

"Um, yes. Yes, that would be an example of _unnecessary_ behavior. But what we're looking for here are clearly ethical breaches. Can anyone think of anything?"

"Assigning homework on game days?" Coach Lewis grunted as he directed his stare towards Will.

"Um. No. Anyone else?"

Silence. Her panicked attempt at audience participation was deflating the energy in the room even further. And the thought of even attempting what Figgins had suggested and Will had offered. . .

"You know Alma,"

Emma felt her stomach plummet to the base of her spine as Sue Sylvester cleared her throat from where she leaned against the corner vending machine.

"Personally I have always been disgusted by the observation that the students, and faculty members, of this institution to be all but completely oblivious to the ethical boundaries concerning sheer, unbridled physical interaction that simply reeks of lust-induced angst."

"Well, yes, Sue. Thank you. That is a great example. Physical contact in any and all forms is generally advised against to protect both the faculty member and the student," Emma said briskly as she turned to the page in the ethics handbook and began to quote. "The Ohio Education Association has determined that..."

"I'm sorry, but I thought the whole point of this exercise is for you and Michael Landon up there to put on a little show for us?" The crowd visibly perked up as Emma's eyes darted towards Figgins, silently pleading for intervention.

"Yes, Miss Pillsbury. Why don't you and Mr. Schuester demonstrate this for us?"

Truthfully, she found it rather ironic that she was supposed to show her colleagues how not to touch a student. When touching a student, touching anyone except the man standing beside her, was possibly the last thing on her mind during the course of the day. Yet somehow, advising her colleagues to take a running leap into the nearest river of cow excrement didn't seem like a viable solution to forbidden urges.

She would have to improvise. "Okay, well there are those who believe that shaking a student's hand is an excellent way to illustrate respect. And to maintain the appropriate," she gulped as Will edged closer towards her, "physical boundaries."

"Would you like me to help you demonstrate, Miss Pillsbury?"

"Um. Yes. Yes, thank you."

She stared at his outstretched hand for a second before it dawned on her that he wanted her to take it. She stepped forward, raised her arm, and limply slid her fingers past his own. He cautiously yet firmly parked his thumb on top of hers, as they both stared down at the connection. After yet another awkward pause, Will was the first to speak.

"Okay, so you want to make sure that your handshake is firm but not too forceful. You, um, don't want to intimidate but you certainly don't want to..."

From his angle on the left side of her, no one could see what happened next. Emma felt her nerves began to melt as he smiled at her and continued his improvised handshake etiquette lecture to the audience. But her eyes doubled in diameter as she watched his thumb rebelliously slide down the base of her own and begin to slowly and tentatively, now, deliberately, stroke the inside of her wrist.

Immediately, she jerked her hand away, stepping backwards and unconsciously shaking it as if she had been burned. "Ah, thank you Mr. Schuester, while that was very informative, I think most of the staff here are quite capable of giving a handshake."

"Well then what would you suggest?" he laughed. He was obviously a little amused that his simple touch had had such an effective on her. It irked just the slightest to see his smirk, but Emma was not one to surrender and pout. No, that was too easy.

"Well I think that…" She had to think fast. "Okay, so you sit down _here_," she knocked her fist down a little too enthusiastically on the front table and pulled out a chair. "And pretend that you are taking," Emma grabbed a stray handout from underneath the podium, "_this_ test." She slapped the paper down.

Will arched his eyebrows in confusion, as Emma emphatically swung her arms, gesturing back towards the table impatiently. Realizing she was not going to back down, he eased into the chair and hung his head over the piece of paper in feigned concentration.

"Now let's say," she spoke as she scanned around the room to find everyone's eyes on her in anticipation, "that Mr. Schuester is a student in my SAT Prep class. And he is having a little bit of trouble with a geometry question."

Will's hand shot up into the air.

"Um, yes?" she breathed.

"Miss Pillsbury," he whined playfully, "I cannot figure out the area of this rectangle!"

An amused snort from a nearby math teacher jolted Emma from her initial shock at Will's willingness to entertain her improvisation into a bolder state. "Okay, William," she chirped as she stepped behind his figure. "Let me take a look."

"Now." Emma took a deep breath as she looked up at her now enthralled audience. Could she really do this? "What you would not want to do in this situation, is to employ any kind of physical contact." With each emphasis of _physical_ and _contact_, she slid her right and left hands gently up Will's upper arms to rest on his shoulders. She felt him shudder underneath her touch as his palms fell flat on the table. She bit her lip to stifle a grin.

"Why would this example be unethical?" she asked the room, as the fingers of her right hand slowly circled the skin of Will's shoulder, inching towards the base of his neck until she had looped her index finger through a stray curl. He squirmed in her grasp.

"Because the student might get the wrong idea!" Figgins exclaimed gleefully, clearly amused at the sudden, entertaining turn of events in the lesson and oblivious to the battle of emotions now in full swing.

"Exactly. You certainly don't want the student to believe that you feel a certain way." Will's shoulders sagged from her grip as she forced the next words to tumble out of her mouth. Softly enough to only fall on the pair of ears beneath her. "When. Clearly. You don't."

Without missing a beat, Will rose from his seat to stand beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Wow, Miss Pillsbury, you know that reminds me of another great example our colleagues might benefit from."

"Ugh, honestly I think we've done en-"

"Encore!" Sue's voice bellowed from the back of the room.

"Thanks Sue," Will, said as he placed his other hand on her opposite shoulder and guided her from behind to stand in front of the podium. "Now let's all imagine," Emma watched in horror as the entire audience seem to lean forward in their chairs simultaneously, "that Miss Pillsbury is a member of Glee Club. And well, folks, despite her most earnest efforts, she. . JUST. CAN'T. DANCE."

Several other teachers chuckled at this. Emma herself couldn't keep from flashing a grin at the man who stood beside her. Her mind leapt back to an afternoon that Will had given her dance lessons for her wedding and she had kept stepping on his toes.

"Mr. Schuester!" she huffed in her very best peeved girl voice, complete with dead-on replication of the Rachel Berry impatient foot-tap. "I do not understand where or how I am supposed to be standing at the end of this routine. Maybe if we had a_ real choreographer_ then I could actually-"

She had become so engrossed in her impersonation that she failed to notice Will's arm curve around her waist as his body slid in front of hers. His back now to the audience, she gasped as he placed his index finger on her lips.

"Okay Emma, let me explain this to you one more time. You should be standing here," he spoke softly as his other hand curled around her waist and guided her about three feet to the left of where they had been standing. And your arm," Emma forgot how to breathe as his hand delicately slid up the side of her cardigan and lifted one of her sagging arms into the air. "Should be like this." Inches from her own lips, his smug face told her just how proud he was of himself for one-upping their last performance. Yet it dimmed when his eyes clearly read the fear in her own.

If this were a cartoon, cricket chirping and bullfrog croaking would have punctuated the now pin-drop silence that settled over the cafeteria. Emma's eyes shifted past Will's head to gauge the staff's reaction. Even Figgins appeared to stunned to be startled from his captivated stare. She tried to blink away a tear before it slipped out, but it was too late.

Will's hand released her arm but he tightened his grasp on her waist as she choked back a sob and fell into his chest. She couldn't stop the tears from escaping as his arms squeezed around her slender, shaking torso. What seemed like an hour passed before he leaned in so only she could hear his whispered breath.

"Em. I'm so sorry. Please. I didn't mean to-"

She gathered every ounce of courage she could muster and took a long, deep breath. "I need some advice, Mr. Schuester," her muffled voice mumbled softly into his now soaked dress shirt. He loosened his hold enough for her to raise her head and speak more clearly, after she took another breath.

"I need some _advice_, Mr. Schuester," she enunciated, so that the audience could hear.

"Uh, okay. What can I help you with Emma," he spoke tentatively, as she backed out of his grasp and smoothed the edges of her skirt.

"Mr. Schue, have you ever liked somebody, so much, you just want to lock yourself in your room, turn on sad music and cry?" Her question elicited a lone giggle from the audience.

"Emma. Wha-?"

"You see. There's this boy," she clutched her heart in exaggeration, triggering a string of laughter from the audience, "in Glee Club. And I really. Really. Like him." Her eyes locked with Will's as his hand rose quizzically to the top of his head. "Love him, actually." Will froze in mid-scratch. "But I'm afraid," she frowned as she took a single step towards him. "That I've waited too long. And that it's too late."

She watched Will stand breathless until he realized the audience was waiting for his line. He leaned back and sat down on top of the edge of table and proceeded to stare at the floor in what appeared to be deep thought.

"You know Emma, I thought you had a boyfriend. It's not fair to lead this other boy on when you're with someone else."

She stepped towards him, bracing her arm on his shoulder. "Who? Carl? Mr. Schue, Carl and I broke up the first week of summer break. He. . ." she paused as Will looked up at her, and smiled, as she leaned in closer. "He didn't understand my. . .my passion for Glee Club."

Will's lips landed on her infectious grin as seventy-three educators gasped simultaneously. She allowed herself to be lost in the moment for a few seconds, but then grudgingly pulled away to eye across the room cautiously.

"And that," she half-panted, half-questioned "is how _not _to maintain ethical boundaries?"

Feeling the weight of seventy-three stares on her, Emma begin to mentally pack the items in her office. Until she saw Figgins jump up to clap enthusiastically. And seventy-two pairs of hands joined him as Will scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the cafeteria.


End file.
